


Say Hello

by amyfortuna



Series: The Future's What You Make Of It [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Happy Ending, I Saw Three Ships, Multi, Polyamory, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-06
Updated: 2009-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-06 03:58:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen struggles to reconcile her feelings for Rhys, Jack, and Ianto. Takes place shortly after the end of Series 2, before Journey's End, and contains spoilers for Series 2. Also contains Gwen/Rhys as well as the requested threesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Hello

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Joanne_c](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joanne_c/gifts).



> Originally written for the 2008 3 Ships exchange. The requested element was Myfanwy. Sorry about not including the requested story element in any more than the barest mention - I actually forgot there was a requested story element until the story was more than halfway done, and then could only find room for a very quick retrofit. I really enjoyed the chance to explore a properly negotiated polyamorous arrangement rather than totally ignoring Rhys, having her cheat on him (again!) or killing him off.

It was going to happen someday, Gwen knew.

Sometimes she wondered about the little details, how, when, and where. The ‘why’ was a mystery beyond her understanding, but the ‘what’ was simple.

Would she sleep with Ianto and Jack in a frenzy of grief after Rhys’ death? Would she turn and kiss Ianto suddenly at a moment of great triumph, an act of unconscious joy that would turn into an act of joyful passion? Would she confess at the moment of her death – somehow it was always Ianto’s face leaning over her while Jack was away saving the world again – that she’d wanted them both and didn’t want to come between them?

She could feel it with Jack, chemistry shivering down the lines of her body when he touched her. He was easy to love, but hard to trust. Ianto, on the other hand, was the place where her world could fall and be held securely. Together they made up two-thirds, with Rhys the final third, of her life.

Since the deaths of Tosh and Owen two weeks earlier, Gwen hadn’t so much as spoken twenty-five words to anyone outside of her three men. Owen’s death was a bright stab of pain wherever she looked. Everything reminded her of him. Silver-hued memories tinged through her with a pain that felt physical in its ache.

But Tosh’s death was a slower burn, a feeling of being outnumbered on foreign ground. She was conscious as never before of her gender — she, who had always tried to play it like one of the boys. There’s nothing like the death of an ally to bring the world into perspective, and she suddenly knew how much of an ally Tosh had been to her.

This was a new and different world she inhabited now. If she thought her life before was bound by constant fears and stress, she understood now how much worse it could get.

Aliens seemed to come at them thick and fast from all sides. She snatched sleep in breathless moments; saw Rhys only when Jack sent her home, ordering her to get some rest. Even then she was too tired to talk, and too guilty to rest for long, knowing that Jack and Ianto would never stop to eat or rest themselves until the world had been saved again.

But there were moments of joy in the madness, along with moments of despair. Rhys was understanding and patient beyond measure. At one point he took the day off from work, and came to help Torchwood. They were so desperate that they welcomed him, and Jack set him to work on Myfanwy and Weevil duty, which Gwen was surprised to find he managed very well indeed.

At the end of that day, Gwen kissed and thanked him as they stood in the meeting room before he left for home. Jack was standing across the room, arms folded, but deliberately, blatantly, listening in.

Rhys just looked at her, calm and steady. “There’s no need for thanks, love,” he said. “I wanted to see for myself, didn’t I?”

“I suppose you did,” Gwen said, feeling another level of meaning in his tone.

“I should let you know, I don’t have a problem with it as long as you come home to me in the end,” Rhys said.

Gwen tilted her head, wondering what he meant.

“It’s really obvious, love,” he went on. “I suppose it’s a Torchwood thing that all of you have this sort of, I dunno, passionate undercurrent,” he trailed off, clearly not sure how to say what he wanted to say.

Gwen just looked at him, silent, trying to tease out whatever he was thinking. Across the room, Ianto had just entered and was standing in the doorway. Gwen could see that he was looking at her and at Jack, and mostly at Rhys. The whole thing suddenly was imbued with an odd tension that made no sense.

“What I’m trying to say, love,” Rhys finally managed to say, “was that it doesn’t matter to me if you want to sleep with Jack and Ianto, so long as you love me and still want to be with me.”

Gwen was stunned into silence. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, vaguely aware that she was looking like a bit of an idiot. And then her arms went around Rhys and she was hugging him fiercely, with a great sense of relief and love.

“I love you so, you dafty,” she whispered. “And I’ll always love you and want to be with you. But what — how did you, how did you know?”

“Hardly a secret, is it?” Rhys said. “I just know. I knew all the time, from the minute I met Jack. But I was scared then, afraid I’d lose you.”

“What happened to change your mind, then?” Gwen was still holding him close, and they were still speaking in hushed tones. Gwen could see Jack and Ianto standing together, Jack’s arm over Ianto’s shoulders. They were clearly still listening, even stepping forward so they could hear better.

“Last Tuesday, you said you’d be coming home, but you didn’t.” Gwen nodded, remembering that particular bout of insanity involving a set of alien proton torpedoes, which once activated, could be set off by falling rain. They’d worked through the night to ensure that all twenty-seven of them had been neutralised, but could only ever find twenty-six. “I was fucking well hacked off at you, even though I knew it wasn’t your fault. So I took a walk down to the bay and saw a glowing thing on the shore.”

Rhys took a breath and ran his fingers through Gwen’s hair. “It was neon green, about a foot long, and shaped like some kind of weapon. And it was active — looked like it was about to go off. I almost called you, but I was still a bit pissed off, and by that time a bit pissed as well, and so I just disarmed it. It was easy, there was a switch and it went black.”

Gwen gasped and held Rhys tighter. “You could’ve so easily been killed. I’d never forgive myself if you got killed because of something I could have prevented.”

Rhys smiled. “And that’s what suddenly occurred to me, that you were doing this for me just as much as anyone else in Cardiff or the world. That I was your safety net. But then I got to thinking, one net’s just one net, isn’t it? One net can break. What you really need is the strength of several nets, to keep us all going. Something could happen to any of us, but if we tie ourselves to others, we hold together better. And that’s why I don’t object.”

Gwen couldn’t quite follow his line of reasoning. “I have two questions. One, I’m already bound to Jack and Ianto — how does this change things? And two, what do you get out of it? Are you a lone cord on the end of the net, just tied to me?”

“You’re bound to them because you love them — you don’t need to even try to protest — I know,” Rhys answered. “And they love you, that’s pretty obvious. But you’re under tension from this. It adds to the stress. If you can all help each other relax, everyone’s life will improve, including mine. And that was my answer to your second question as well.”

“One more question,” Gwen said, and she spoke a little louder this time, glancing over at Jack and Ianto, aware that they were listening, wanting them to hear this. “What do you see happening in the future, where does all this go?”

“I’ve discussed this with them,” Rhys said, “and Ianto told me that Torchwood operatives are lucky to make it past the age of 35. He said the teams who’ve survived the longest have been ones who had this sort of understanding between some or all of them, and the individuals who’ve lived longest have been the ones who had lives outside of Torchwood, safe places to land. I want you to live, my Gwen.” He paused and kissed her forehead softly. “Whatever happens in the future happens.”

Ianto seemed to take the mention of his name as a cue and, tugging on Jack’s hand, walked over to them. Rhys turned, releasing Gwen.

“I, erm, I’m not very good at saying things like this, it’s Jack’s area of expertise,” Ianto said. “But you belong with us, you feel right.”

“The more the—” Jack started to say, and then caught himself with a glance at Rhys.

Gwen looked at all of them. She thought about her crazy, mixed-up world, and the three of them, and how important they all were to her.

“What can I say but yes, and thank you?” she said, reaching out her arms to them. They gathered her close, all of them, holding her for a long moment. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so secure.

Rhys was the first to move away. “I’ll see you when I see you,” he said.

“You will!” she responded.

He made to leave the room, but Jack followed, and gathered him into a hug. “You’ll never regret making this choice,” Jack said, and kissed him on the mouth, hard and fast. Rhys responded with a grin and a laugh, but didn’t say anything more. With a final glance at Gwen, he was gone. The doors of the Hub clanged as Jack, Ianto, and Gwen stood, silent, a little awkward, together.

Gwen was the first to make a move, leaning up and kissing Ianto soundly, her hands on both sides of his face. She could feel him blushing and getting instantly hard.

When the kiss broke he just looked at her in a way she’d never seen him look before and she thought, “this must be how he looks at Jack when they…”. Her mind was lost in a series of imagined pictures and memories bursting across her — Jack and Ianto kissing in Jack’s office, half naked Jack and Ianto in the throes of passion that night she’d caught them. She felt like she was melting.

Jack was there to catch her, and he smiled down at her. “The more the merrier,” he said. “And we, we want you. We’ve talked about it a lot.”

Ianto leaned down, whispering into her ear. “We never thought it would happen and we never would have said anything, if Rhys hadn’t come to talk to us. But we do want you. We’re Torchwood, we’re together in this as in everything else.”

And then Jack was kissing her. All conscious thought was swept away and only sensation remained. She could dimly feel that Ianto was behind her, kissing her neck and ear. She could feel Jack’s arms around her and that Ianto and Jack were both hard.

If they had proposed flinging her down on the table and having their wicked way with her there and then she would not have objected. Instead, they all went to Ianto’s flat, a little slice of perfectly ordered comfort buried deep within an anonymous concrete tower block.

Ianto got halfway through offering her a drink before she kissed him again. In the background she could hear Jack laughing at Ianto’s surprise, properly laughing without any trace of the sarcastic note that sometimes infected his laugh, a sound of pure happiness that thrilled her to the core.

Then they were in Ianto’s bedroom, as neat as the rest of the flat, with a large bed in the centre of the room, incongruously unmade. Jack turned on the light, adjusting the dimmer switch to just provide a warm glow rather than a bright light.

Her top was undone, Jack’s coat was lying on the floor in the hallway, and Ianto’s tie was just inside the doorway. They were too busy to talk, unbuttoning clothing and trading kisses, Ianto kissing Jack, Jack kissing Gwen, Gwen kissing Ianto and Jack joining the kiss.

Her hair was mussed, falling about her shoulders in a dark sea, and her jeans and top were off, leaving her in her white underwear, plain and sensible. Jack was down to boxers, and Ianto, who had been sturdily making sure they both had as much clothing removed as possible, was still dressed bar the tie.

Gwen traded a look with Jack and they both tackled Ianto. Jack was muttering things about him being overdressed and just because he’s playing host doesn’t mean he gets to be shy.

The bed was a generous one, easily big enough for three people. Gwen found herself sitting on it so she could pull off the last of Ianto’s clothes. Somewhere in there someone — she suspected Jack — had unhooked her bra, and now it fell to the floor, forgotten.

Gwen suddenly realised she had no idea how to go about threesome sex outside of a fantasy. She watched Ianto and Jack kissing, both of them now down to underwear, and her fingers itched to slip into her panties and bring herself off there and then.

Jack turned toward her as she stood up and the heat in his gaze momentarily overwhelmed her. He of all people would clearly know what to do.

“Time to get these off, I think,” he gestured to her underwear, tugging at his own at the same time. They were quick to follow his lead, and Gwen found herself standing in front of two gorgeous men, both with very hard cocks. Suddenly it seemed obvious what should be done.

Jack’s cock was perfectly formed like the rest of him, not too short, not too long or thick or thin, just exactly right. Ianto’s curved upwards and seemed a little thinner in comparison to Jack’s, although fully as long. Gwen took them both in her hands, running a finger over the sensitive heads, watching their faces.

Ianto’s eyes scrunched up when he was enjoying himself, but his mouth opened. Jack’s eyes stayed open, looking at her with laughter in them, and only a gasp betrayed that he was having a good time.

But she wasn’t given much of a chance to explore. Before long Jack moved forward as she let go of him and swept her into another spine-tingling kiss. This time she could feel the whole length of his body pressed against her own, and it was maddening.

He pulled her down on top of him to the bed. She could feel his cock nestling against the folds of her cunt and desperately wanted to have him inside her.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can’t get you pregnant.”

She hadn’t even been thinking about that and opened her eyes, grateful that he’d mentioned it. “Why?” she asked.

“Biochemical settings were altered for career purposes, and now I don’t have the tools to change them back.”

“Ah,” she said, half understanding, and leaned down, kissing him, her breasts dangling like ripe fruit.

When the kiss broke, she looked around for Ianto, who had not been idle, and was sliding a condom on.

That done, he walked over to the bed and crawled in with them. “Carry on, that’s very pretty,” he said.

“God, I want you both,” Gwen whispered, feeling Jack against her, feeling Ianto reach up to brush a hand down the length of her back to her arse. Ianto exchanged a look with Jack, and knelt up on the bed, kissing and sometimes biting his way down Gwen’s back. Gwen moaned and tried to push herself onto Jack’s cock.

Ianto reached in between them and made what felt like the minutest of adjustments. And then everything was absolutely perfect and Jack was sliding into her.

She leaned down to kiss Jack and for a long moment they lay there together, silent, not moving. She could hear Ianto rustling something behind them and the click of a tube being opened.

She was half expecting Ianto to do something, but when he licked gently at her cunt, it was a surprise that made her moan with delight. Underneath her Jack’s eyes went wide and she could feel him trembling. Ianto kept licking where their bodies joined. Gwen felt exposed, vulnerable, and ridiculously turned on, shivers of sensation running down her spine. Jack was gasping now, thrusting gently, as deep as he could get inside her.

Ianto moved carefully upward to her arsehole, not licking now, just breathing against her, and she was utterly lost in sensation for a moment, hardly able to breathe herself. Then a slick finger penetrated her, so gently it didn’t even begin to hurt, followed by another.

She’d done this before with Rhys in an experimental mood, and enjoyed it more than she had been expecting to. So it wasn’t a new sensation, but it was so gently done that it was almost overwhelming. She felt like all of her nerve endings were concentrated, impossibly stimulated.

Jack reached up a hand to grope her breasts, and she looked at him with a kind of wide-eyed wonder. She could feel Ianto spreading her legs even further apart, driving her down onto Jack’s cock even more. And then she felt him pushing into her arse and let out a desperate ‘fuck!’ at the feeling of the two of them in her. Jack arched and moaned, his eyes falling shut.

For one trembling, ecstatic moment they all stayed perfectly still, and then she found herself rising and falling with the motion of Jack’s hips. Ianto, behind her, matched his thrusts perfectly. As Jack withdrew a little, he pushed her further onto Ianto’s cock, and as Ianto pulled back, she fell forward to impale herself on Jack. She felt out of control of the motion of her own body. With anyone else she would have been afraid, but it was these two, and it was perfect.

Jack had slipped a hand down her body and was teasing her clit with a light finger. When she came, it felt like endless waves of pleasure were crashing down over her. She could feel what seemed to be a torrent of wetness leaking from her and was too far gone to feel embarrassed.

Jack and Ianto were slamming into her now. She caught a glimpse of Jack’s face as he came, mouth falling open, eyes closed. Behind her Ianto made a low noise like a growl and came too, thrusting deep into her.

After a breathless moment Ianto carefully withdrew from her, collapsing on the bed next to Jack, who stayed buried inside her, and who, impossibly, stayed hard.

Ianto pulled off the condom, throwing it into the bin next to the bed, and then opened a drawer in the bedside table. He withdrew what seemed to be a damp cloth and then gently proceeded to clean Gwen and Jack off, removing all traces of the lube and any extra moisture.

Gwen laughed. “Trust you to be fully prepared,” she said softly.

“I’ve got plans for you,” Ianto whispered. “Come on, Jack, give us a go, then.”

Jack rolled Gwen over so she was lying on the bed and carefully withdrew from her. “You’re going to love this,” he whispered. “The things he can do with his mouth are illegal in at least six systems I can think of.”

“Drink?” Ianto said, holding out a bottle of water to Gwen. He had another in his hand, and where they’d come from Gwen couldn’t have guessed and didn’t bother to try.

“Yeah, please,” she said, taking the bottle. Ianto upended his own and then placed it back into the small ‘beer’ cooler Gwen suddenly noticed.

The water was cool and fresh, and she drank nearly half of it, then offered the rest to Jack, who happily took it. “Gotta keep the fluid levels up,” he said with his cheesiest grin.

Gwen was so absorbed in watching Jack drink the rest of the bottle of water that it was a surprise when Ianto’s tongue licked just at the top of her cunt, quickly delving in to find her clit. His mouth was cool on her overheated body and she sank into the sensations. Jack, lying beside her, one arm under her head, finished the water and lobbed the bottle across the room, then bent to kiss her, his free hand gently rubbing at one of her nipples.

She found herself drifting away on an ocean of sensations as her eyes slid shut. Every thought in her mind fell away and time stretched out beyond measure as she abandoned herself to Jack and Ianto’s more than capable hands.

* * *

The morning light shone through a tiny crack in the dark curtains as Gwen awoke in Jack’s arms. Just over his shoulder she could see Ianto sleeping with an arm draped around Jack’s waist.

She carefully disentangled herself from Jack, and got up, walking carefully to the bathroom. When she looked at herself in the mirror she couldn’t help but laugh. Her hair was tangled, what little makeup she wore was gone, and there were faint marks on her neck. After splashing her face with cold water, she felt a bit more human. She gathered up her top from the floor and put it on, braless, then made her way to the kitchen.

She was halfway through a cup of tea before Jack appeared. He looked only a little worse for wear, but was clearly just awake.

“Sleep well?” she asked.

“For once, yes, actually,” he said, pouring himself a glass of water. He sat down in the chair next to her and for a few minutes they shared a comfortable silence.

“So, say hello to your future life,” he said at last. “Here we are, this is the world we live in and whatever time we have is the time we get.”

The sun was shining through the kitchen windows, and far in the distance Gwen could see the water. She sat back in her chair and sipped her tea, utterly at peace for the first time since before she’d started at Torchwood. Across the city Rhys would be waiting, and in the stars all of time and space lingered.

“Hello, future, I’m pleased to meet you,” she said.


End file.
